


Tic, Tock the Passage of Time

by deawrites



Category: Shutter Island (2010)
Genre: Adult Content, Explicit Language, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 18:41:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4148694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deawrites/pseuds/deawrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What follows the lobotomy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tic, Tock the Passage of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Love the book and the movie. Here's another fic-let.
> 
> All questions, comments, criticism and kudos welcome. Thank you for reading!
> 
> If you find any errors please let me know.

“Patient is highly intelligent and highly delusional. Known proclivity for violence. Extremely agitated. Shows no remorse for his crime because his denial is such that no crime ever took place. Patient has erected a series of highly developed and highly fantastical narratives which preclude, at this time, his facing the truth of his actions.”

Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island 2003

 

 

_Andrew Laeddis. He could still remember his name, he could remember his daughter Rachel, poor sweet, little, lifeless Rachel, who stared at nothing with dark, unblinking eyes. He could vaguely recall the texture of her wet hair between his fingers and the size of her hand in his own. So cold, so gray, so still; she was gone at Dolores’s hand. He felt no sorrow now remembering Rachel lying dead on the grass by the lake. He felt no fury at what Dolores had stolen from him by drowning Rachel and their two sons, Edward and Daniel. If Andrew experienced any emotional sensation at all it was indifference thanks to the trans-orbital lobotomy he had received, heaven only knew how long ago it was now. Time didn’t pass for Andrew as much as it melded. Everything melded, days, meals, seasons, memories, pills, medical examinations, notes in his file, sounds on the radio. Everything was an indiscernible event that he felt far removed from._

_Andrew didn’t care, and he never had to again. He couldn’t remember what it was like to feel hatred, or love. He endured seizures now, but the doctors had medications for that. They had medications for everything. Some of them even tisked what a shame, or waste it was for Andrew to have had surgery now that there was this drug on the market or that. They all looked at him expectantly and Andrew merely stared back, indifferent. Medications, surgery, conversation or silence; they were all the same to him now. Sometimes the institution staff would scurry around him like panicked ants when a child poured water on the entrance to their hill. Andrew watched them rush around, try to restrain him and puncture him with ten different needles before they were able to subdue him. They said he was prone to violent fits unexpectedly, but to Andrew that was just more words that should mean something to him more to him than their basic definitions._

_He still remembered Rachel at times. He could picture her face in his mind’s eye. And he felt nothing for the loss of his daughter. He knew he had loved her, and that should be marked as a miracle, for Andrew loved Dolores more than any man had the right to love a wife. Andrew accepted it was important that he had loved Rachel so much but that was all it was; important; a word; a definition and nothing more. Andrew felt nothing any longer. He didn’t miss feeling because he couldn’t remember what the feeling of sensation was any longer. That ability was gone now; gone like Rachel; gone like Dolores; gone like Edward and Daniel. Andrew wondered if Teddy ever thought about Dolores, and if Teddy now hated her. Not that it mattered. Time didn’t pass for Andrew as much as it melded. Everything melded, days, meals, seasons, memories, pills, medical examinations, notes in his file, sounds on the radio. Everything was an indiscernible event that he felt far removed from._


End file.
